Producción de plantas ornamentales en el Vivero Tierra Baldía, El Bolsón, Patagonia.

Abstract

In Argentina, commercial floriculture began in Buenos Aires with the production of potted plants by Japanese and German immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century. Later, in the 1930s, production expanded to cut flowers. It was the most developed in Latin America until the 1970s, when political issues and poor management limited the growth of national floriculture. The economic climate of the 1990s then favored the introduction of new technologies for production, as well as the introduction of new varieties of ornamental plants and commercial substrates (Morisigue et al., 2012). The ornamental plant market is characterized by a very abundant supply of species and varieties, but in Argentina, despite nearly a century of production and a wide diversity of climates, commercial production is poorly diversified (Morisigue et al., 2012). In Patagonia, floriculture is a recent activity, with producers and investors interested in meeting market demand. There are approximately eighty producers of bulbs, cut flowers, and dried flowers, as well as nurseries and potted plant producers, dedicated to this task. In some locations (mainly tourist destinations), growth and development, accompanied by landscaping projects in both private gardens and public green spaces, are generating an increase in demand for ornamental plants (Mazzoni et al., 2008). In Northern Patagonia, the Tierra Baldía nursery is a renowned ornamental plant producer in the region. With facilities in the towns of El Bolsón and El Hoyo, it carries out part of the production and retail sales, but also supplies retail nurseries in several Patagonian provinces.